


Capes Can't Solve Every Problem

by Luddleston, MurphyAT



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Adorable Merrill, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Based on a True Story, Embarrassment, F/M, Gen, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Merrill being Merrill, Roommates, but it's BEAUTIFUL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5999434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/pseuds/Luddleston, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyAT/pseuds/MurphyAT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Merrill wrapped her coziest blanket around her shoulders, clutching it at her collarbone, a bit like a cape. She always felt a little more heroic walking about with her cape swooping through the air behind her. <i>And</i> it was warm! Capes solved so many problems."</p><p>Merrill is cute and has to pee, and Isabela has sex in inconvenient places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capes Can't Solve Every Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Luke, for being the Isabela in this story. Fellow organic life form Luddles and I cowrote this and a glorious time was had by all (I specialize in awkward, she specializes in excellent smut, it works out). 
> 
> Part of the larger FU AU series. Enjoy this, my muffins.

Merrill woke from a dream about puppies. It had been a bit stressful for a dream, considering she had to take care of so many puppies all at once, and they kept getting lost in various, increasingly dangerous places. Other than the unusual dreams, though, the night had been pleasant. Isabela had convinced her to take a night off from her ever-growing pile of homework, and so they watched a movie that didn’t have much of a plot and drank a bottle of wine (more of the bottle had gone into Isabela’s glass than Merrill’s). 

The glass still lay tipped on its side next to her bedside table. Merrill tutted softly at it (“how did you get there?”) and put it back on the table, pausing when she heard Isabela laughing from the living room downstairs. Really, did she ever sleep?

Merrill decided she would gently urge Isabela to go to bed when she went downstairs to the bathroom. Alcohol put such a strain on her already-tiny bladder. If only she didn’t have to crawl out from the warmth of her bed to get there. The heater had kicked out the other night, and neither Merrill nor Isabela had much luck getting Hawke to unglue his lips from Fenris’... everything... after their Glorious Reunion (his words) to come and fix it. 

So, to begin her journey, Merrill wrapped her coziest blanket around her shoulders, clutching it at her collarbone, a bit like a cape. She always felt a little more heroic walking about with her cape swooping through the air behind her. _And_ it was warm! Capes solved so many problems. Why didn’t everyone wear capes? 

Her bladder twinged uncomfortably. Merrill quickened to the stairs, cape sweeping very satisfactorily in her wake. She made an effort not to trip down the steep staircase in her haste; it wouldn’t do to pee on the stairs. She heard something like a blanket rustling, like someone was trying (and failing) to sleep on the couch. _Poor, tired Isabela,_ Merrill thought tenderly, and determined that she would help her dear roommate get to bed at a proper time in the future. 

She wandered down the rest of the stairs, stopping to stare at the couch, where there was a suspiciously larger-than-Isabela shape. A… moving shape… it was… undulating?? And—skin, oh Mythal, so much skin. Merrill clapped a hand over her mouth with a (hopefully inaudible) _GASP._ It was difficult to make out exactly what was happening, except that there was an Isabela-leg overtop of a not-Isabela leg, and... and… Merrill hadn’t been aware people _could_ move their hips that way until just this moment. 

Oh! Oooooh no. As soon as she realized what was happening, she covered her eyes with her free hand, her cape tragically falling from her shoulders and leaving her cold, confused, and still with a strong urge to relieve herself. But she’d have to go _past them_ to get to the bathroom, and someone was _grunting,_ and she didn’t have any more hands to cover her ears, too. 

She felt hot to the tips of her ears and stood, frozen with deadly indecision, hands firmly covering her face. 

“So, is this about when I start calling you ‘captain’?” a deep, accented voice asked, and then chuckled.

Merrill jumped at the words and felt a bit of pee run down her leg. Without thinking, she scooped up her fallen blanket-cape and dashed back up the stairs to the safety of her room. This fixed only one of her problems, and not even the most immediate one. Capes were not going to help her find a place to pee. She felt, under the mounting panic and the urgent pressure of her bladder, a little betrayed. Why couldn’t Isabela do _that_ in her perfectly good bedroom, instead of ten feet from the only bathroom in the house? 

Merrill ran around the room, trying to find something— _anything_ to use so she didn’t ruin her wonderful, fluffy carpet. “Oooooh, Mythal, this is embarrassing,” she wailed to herself, tossing aside a throw pillow (not suitable) and a box for bobby pins (much too small!). She turned and--there it was.

The wine glass. Sitting innocently on her bedside table. _Aha!_

She lunged for it, as if it might escape, and nearly tripped in grabbing it. With relief soon in sight, she shuffled quickly to the corner of the room (she may be peeing in a wine glass, but she wasn’t completely uncivilized), lifted her yellow nightdress, and squatted awkwardly. It was difficult to position the glass properly with cloth and limbs in the way (the curse of her sex), but it was as good as Merrill was going to get it. She let go in a terrible, wonderful rush, and was (mostly) successful in keeping it contained. A little got on her foot, but Merrill would take it. The carpet was safe, and that was the important thing. 

Now she just had to figure out what to _do_ with a wine glass full of warm pee. She peered at it. It was disturbingly frothy. Merrill shook herself and set it _very gently_ on her bedside table, wondering what to _do._ She couldn’t just...leave it, overnight, could she? No. Creators, no! Of course not.

Merrill glanced at the window. “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully, and looked back to the glass and its damning contents. “Well, why not this too?” she muttered, and opened the window. As soon as she cracked it open wide enough, she was hit with a blast of cold air, and wished she had her blanket-cape again. Capes _would_ solve this problem. 

She balanced the now-less-frothy wine glass _very_ carefully as she stepped toward the window, and, for a brief moment, considered throwing the entire thing out and being done with the whole mess. 

That would be a waste of a perfectly good wine glass—one that would soon be _thoroughly disinfected._ She only had the one, really, and glasses were expensive on a college student’s salary of debt and ramen. Best just to toss the—liquid—good and far. (It would be awful to have to clean the kitchen window, too.)

It was satisfying to watch it arc out of the glass and off into the distant backyard, like seeing all of her problems simply fly off into the dark. 

It was cold, though. Time for another blanket-cape, Merrill thought, and shut the window firmly.  
\------- 

The next morning, she woke to a house free of nocturnal visitors—she'd tiptoed downstairs extra-slowly just in case. Isabela found her furiously scrubbing the wine glass in the bathroom sink—not the kitchen, that just seemed _too gross._

“What are you up to, Kitten?” she asked, peering into the open bathroom door. 

“Oh, um, I was just, well, you see…” Merrill stammered, and she felt like she was as red as that paint Hawke always managed to get on his face. 

Isabela leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. She was only wearing a bra and a pair of boxer shorts. Wasn’t she _cold?_ Merrill thought she could probably use a blanket-cape. 

“I, well, Isabela, I’m so sorry,” she began, setting the glass on the edge of the sink. “It’s just, last night, I woke up because of my dream about puppies, and I had to pee, so I walked downstairs, and, well, I’m _sorry,_ Isabela, I didn’t mean to walk in on you, but there were _noises,_ and… and _things,_ and I… well… and so now, I have to wash this wine glass.” 

Isabela laughed. “You do that, Kitten,” she said, “and I’ll try to talk Zevran out of couch sex next time. Key word being _try._ He does so enjoy spontaneity, but I always manage to get a crick in my back. Still, though, you could have just walked past us.” 

“Oh, no, no, I _couldn’t_ have,” she said, picking up the wine glass to wash it for the third time. 

_Not yet,_ Merrill thought. _It’s not clean yet._

**Author's Note:**

> <3 Tumbl at me bro @magpiemurph (Luddleston is @weezna).


End file.
